


deliver us from evil

by straddling_the_atmosphere



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 05:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8832022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straddling_the_atmosphere/pseuds/straddling_the_atmosphere
Summary: Our father, who art in heaven, (Please help me.)hallowed be thy name. (Mr. Graves.)Thy kingdom come, they will be done, (I’m so hungry.)On Earth as it is in Heaven. (It’s so hungry.)





	

_Our Father, who art in Heaven._

When Credence is twelve years old, he begins to dream of darkness. It’s all encompassing, a heavy thing that presses down on his shoulders, makes him hunch over to hold the weight. Ma beats him every day to fix his posture, but it’s the one thing that she gives up on.

 _You have evil in those bones,_ she hisses at him, and Credence thinks of the darkness, thinks of inky smoke spreading out from his hands and mouth, and agrees.

-

Credence is fifteen the first time a man tries to put him on his knees. He says to him, _that mouth, you could do filthy things,_ and Credence doesn’t understand, takes a step back, and another, and another, until the man is crowding him up against the wall and-and.

Credence doesn’t remember the rest. Just that suddenly he’s home, and Ma asks him why he smells like smoke and burnt flesh. 

Credence takes off his belt.

-

When he turns eighteen, Credence considers leaving. Briefly, for about a minute, before Modesty asks him for help with something and he knows he can’t. When he closes his eyes, he feels nothing. He sees nothing. Just black, just smoke curling out from deep inside his chest. There’s a writhing, living thing inside him, snarling to get out.

_Lead us not into temptation._

He’s eighteen when he kisses a boy for the first time, savagely, like he wants to rip whatever is inside him out and breathe it into the other boy. Dirty, filthy, evil in those bones, he hears, and he wants to yank the thoughts out of his own head.

He wants to _bleed._

He lets the boy go and wipes his mouth.

-

Credence is twenty when he meets his first witch. She’s slim and pale but her eyes are like fire, and her mouth speaks a language he’s heard in churches and mass. When she says them, the air moves, Ma freezes, her eyes bulging. Credence is shivering and he can feel blood dripping down his back. 

_Pater noster, qui es in caelis._

The witch kneels down to look at him. “Are you alright?” she asks, but Credence can’t seem to answer.

_sanctificetur Nomen Tuum._

The witch, Tina, leaves. Nobody seems to remember what happened except for him. When he sleeps, the black thing wants to eat him up.

Sometimes it does.

_adveniat Regnum Tuum._

-

He’s still twenty when he meets the eyes of a magnetic man in a long coat and a face too handsome to be on this side of Union Square. The thing inside of Credence spreads and settles deep in the hollows of his throat, almost like it’s purring, and his breath catches. He looks away.

_Deliver us from evil._

The man is back the next day, and the next. On the fourth day, he takes a pamphlet, his hand touching the back of Credence’s scarred knuckles. His vision whites out for a brief moment and when he comes back to himself, the man is gone.

The veins along his wrists are black like rot. Ma beats him again that night. 

-

The man with the magnetic eyes talks to him five days later. “What’s your name, boy?” he asks.

“Credence, sir,” he says. “Barebone.”

The man looks at him for a long moment. “Credence,” he says. His voice skitters up Credence’s spine, like a living thing, and settles into the hollows of his ribs. 

_Give us this day our daily bread._

“I want to talk to you more about this, boy,” the man says, cocking his head to the side. “You can call me Mr. Graves.”

-

Credence is twenty-one when Mr. Graves tells him he’s a wizard. Something inside him already knew. Something inside him wonders if he could fit the hollows of his bones into the spaces of Mr. Graves’ body, if he could be consumed by him and never get out.

_And forgive us our debts._

Mr. Graves asks him for help in finding a child, a child with something inside of them. _What if I’m that child, Mr. Graves?_ he doesn’t ask. _I have something inside me that wants to get out. It eats and eats and it’s so hungry, Mr. Graves. I’m so hungry._

“Of course, Mr. Graves,” Credence says instead. _Thy will be done._

“You’re a special boy, Credence,” Mr. Graves tells him. His broad, warm hands cup the back of his neck and Credence sways, the heat of them like a brand, seared along his skin. _Please,_ he thinks. _Pleasepleaseplease._

Mr. Graves releases him, and Credence lets out a gasp. “I’ll see you again tomorrow, my boy,” he says, and he’s gone.

Credence presses his forehead to the cool wall, sucking in the stale air. _Please help me._

-

Credence is twenty-one and three weeks when Mr. Graves gives him the necklace. It feels hot against the skin of his chest, hidden under his clothes. His palms sweat, thinking about the way Mr. Graves had cupped his cheek, hands rough and calloused, the way they’d lingered, the way the blunt nails had scraped, just a little, along his jaw. 

His tongue feels swollen and thick in his mouth, from hunger, from pain, from that bone-deep emptiness in his body. 

_Our father, who art in heaven, (Please help me.)_  
_hallowed be thy name. (Mr. Graves.)_  
_Thy kingdom come, they will be done, (I’m so hungry.)_  
_On Earth as it is in Heaven. (It’s so hungry.)_

-

Credence is twenty-one and three weeks and one day when Mr. Graves presses a thumb just under the hinge of his jaw and he lets out a whimper before he can stop it. 

“Oh, my boy,” Mr. Graves says, voice velvet soft. Credence’s lips part, his heart in his throat, that thing spreading relentlessly throughout his body. He can feel smoke start to waft off his fingers. But then--then.

It’s a hard kiss, a mean one, but Credence fists his hands in that coat and makes a soft, needy noise, feels it curling in the back of his throat. The thing inside him stretches languidly and purrs, and Credence’s toes curl in his boots. 

_Lead us not into temptation._

Mr. Graves lets go, he presses his thumb to Credence’s swollen lower lip, his dark eyes predatory. “What a special boy you are,” he says softly. “Bring me the child, and you and I can do much more than just this.”

_Deliver us from evil._

-

Credence is twenty-one and four weeks when he kills his Ma.

Credence is twenty-one and four weeks when Mr. Graves slaps him, calls him _pathetic, a stupid squib of a boy._

Credence is twenty-one when his eyes go white and his lips curl into a snarl and he lets the thing inside him swallow him whole.

Credence is twenty-one when he hears Mr. Graves say, _a miracle, a wonder,_ when he sees him fall to his knees, his eyes wide and awed.

Credence is twenty-one when he hears Tina, her voice soft, gentle.

Credence is twenty-one when he sees bright light and suddenly feels nothing at all. 

_Amen._

**Author's Note:**

> ...........well. let me know what y'all think. 
> 
> bye.
> 
> **Translations:**   
>  [Russian](https://ficbook.net/readfic/5055469)


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